


Furniture and Memories

by cathgotyourtongue



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Current Events, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathgotyourtongue/pseuds/cathgotyourtongue
Summary: Hajime confesses, his voice weak and hoarse, slightly cracking. Tooru thinks he may be slowly succumbing into slumber. It's already so deep into the night, after all.Denial is a powerful thing.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Furniture and Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the Corona Virus pandemic. 
> 
> This is a tribute to all the front liners out there. We appreciate all your hard work!
> 
> I do not work in the medical field, so please excuse the inaccuracies. I wanted to build a background for them both, so I may have exaggerated a few things... I hope you enjoy reading this anyway!
> 
> I'm not fluent in English, so If there are any errors, please let me know.
> 
> Enjoy!

Tooru slips through the back door and makes his way to the side of their house. It’s become a habit of his for the past few days since he had returned. He moves quietly, lifting himself over the fence and landing on the other side with practiced ease. He has done this often enough, since their childhood, that he knows exactly where to climb so that he lands directly in front of his childhood friend’s window on the ground floor.

He toes off his slippers before sliding the window open and stepping inside Hajime’s empty room.

It looks almost uninhabited with how neatly Hajime maintains his room, more so than usual: his bed was already made, books tidily stacked next to his desk, and not even a single piece of clothing lay cluttered on the floor. Tooru smiles proudly. He likes to think he had forced this habit upon Hajime, seeing as Iwaizumi-san won’t allow Hajime to have any visitors until he cleans his room, and Tooru visits almost daily.

He walks over to the desk and sits on the chair, looking at the corkboard above it where a couple of photos were pinned. He barely looks at some of them, he already knows he looks impeccable in every single photo except one: the photo on the very center of the board—a strip of pictures of the two of them from when they went to an arcade in high school.

He remembers going with Mattsun and Makki as well, remembers taking the photos with all of them, four grown athletes squeezed inside a tiny photo booth. He remembers the struggle to get away from the blinding, blinking lights and deafening sound effects,

and he remembers Iwa-chan pulling him back in again, putting an arm over his shoulder as his free hand smacks the capture button down four times in rapid succession. He had been so shocked; he didn’t even get to pose.

Beside him in the photo, Iwa-chan looks as handsome as he did that day, as he always did when he lets the grumpy mask fall and lets the carefree, cheerful part of him loose, lips stretched in a wide, boyish smile, eyes squeezed shut from laughter. It’s the only thing stopping him from ripping the damn photo to shreds.

“What are you doing here, Oikawa?” A gruff voice coming from the doorway behind him interrupts his thoughts.

Tooru smiles. It’s a little tight around the edges, a little hesitant, but real. It always starts this way the past few days, and he knows now how to steer the conversation where he wants it to.

“You’re lucky you’re the first thing that comes to my mind every morning, Iwa-chan. Aren’t you happy to see me?” He teases as naturally as he could.

“Not this early in the morning, no.”

“Ah, so just after breakfast, then? Lunchtime, maybe?” He asks with a lilt in his voice, but makes no sign of moving.

Tooru can practically _feel_ Hajime raise his hands in defeat and letting them fall heavily to his sides before backing away into the hallway. “I can’t with this. I need caffeine.” Hajime says, his voice fading the further away he goes. Tooru ignores how his own shoulders slump as he exhaled, relaxing after holding his breath for too long.

He sounded so tired, Tooru thinks, and not just the exasperated kind of tired he usually sounds whenever it concerns him.

Silence settles again as he is left to his devices. He doesn’t really have anything to do, hasn’t had anything to do for the past few days, so he busies himself with the most trivial tasks. Tooru goes back to rummaging around Hajime’s desk, aligning a few pens and highlighters, rearranging papers in their folders, as if he hadn’t already done so yesterday, or the days before that.

A few minutes pass before Hajime enters the room again. “Are you staying here all day? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

He scoffs. “Just because you’re some kind of lifesaver, Iwa-chan, doesn’t mean I have to be.”

Tooru hears the closet door squeak behind him, and he thinks Hajime must already be changing. “A couple of months of internship doesn’t make me a lifesaver. And you’re one to talk! I’m not the one who brought a person back to _life_.” Hajime’s voice is muffled as he pulls his shirt over his head.

He deadpans a fake indignant gasp, to which Hajime replies with a snort. He knows Hajime is exaggerating. After all, the patient had been alive, technically, and all he did was stabilize the failing heart. It was his first _big moment_ , however, only a few weeks into his internship, so he may have narrated the entire event a tad more dramatically than it had actually been.

He could still remember it vividly though: the adrenaline in the room, where everything was a blur with movement but he could still see everything with excellent clarity, his eyes darting to every equipment, his hands knowing exactly what to do one second before anyone else in the room could even think it—everyone who could have been more fit to handle the situation were not there to guide them. Still, it felt like he absolutely knew what he was doing, what he was about to do next, what he was supposed to do ten steps ahead. He will never forget how steady his hands were, how clear his head was, how fast yet steady his heart was beating.

The monumentality of the event was not due to him “saving a life,” no. That’s normal. That is what every medical staff in that hospital has been doing every day, every hour of every shift. There is nothing extraordinary about saving a life in that place; that is what’s expected of them.

But that moment, when he had put down the defibrillator, and a deep sounding exhale of a breath he must have been holding the entire time had finally left his lungs, was the moment that he had thought, with absolute certainty, that this was it. After years of self-doubt, of deep-seated regrets, of feeling that there may be nothing else for him after that career-ending fall.

This, right here, was exactly what he was meant to be doing.

There’s nothing harmful about helping others. Aside from the twenty-hour shifts, and the mental torture of knowing that failure may lead to the end of one’s life (nothing stressful about that _at all, of course_ ), in the medical field, no one is ever going to tell you _I’m sorry, you aggravated your bad knee after that slip. You can never treat another patient again for the rest of your life_.

Nothing about saving lives should threaten one’s own in the medical field. That is what Tooru believes, anyway.

Hajime, however…

He feels his hands fold tight into a fist. Spite fills his veins, his lungs. He reigns himself in, because he promised himself he won’t feel angry, not again, not now. But even Oikawa Tooru sometimes fails to hold in his emotions.

“At least I’m no martyr.” He grumbles quietly to himself, but he says it with such venom that he may have gotten Hajime’s attention anyway.

A sigh. “Oikawa. We talked about this.”

Tooru rolls his eyes. _Yes._ He thinks. _Quite a few times now, actually._

In the medical field, you must be prepared for the profession’s toll on your psychological well-being. He thinks back to his years in high school, and mentally pats himself on the back for being such an accommodating flirt. He might have unknowingly saved his career because of it. It took him years to perfect that mask he puts over his face.

That apologetic smile, the humble lowering of his head with a slight tilt, the tentative hunch of his shoulders, and finally, the practiced apology: a quiet “I’m really sorry,” that makes his admirers swoon instead of cry, makes all the girls eager to make it up to him instead, with baked goods and beaming smiles.

He applies the same tactics on his patients. Or their loved ones.

When he turns around, the mask falls, and there appears the real person behind it, the kind of person who feels the need to cover himself with these masks instead of just allowing himself to genuinely feel even a little bit remorseful.

Call him selfish, insensitive, pompous. People call them flaws. He calls them his armor.

Oikawa Tooru does not hold the privilege to allow himself to care. Caring is the worst beating a heart can take; caring manipulates one’s decisions, caring leads to life-threatening circumstances. So he arms himself with these traits, and in the event that feelings punch their way into his armor, he takes them with his bare hands and twists and twists and twists, even as his hands bleed, even as his heart aches from the exertion, he molds them even harder until he’s turned it into his own weapon, his own instrument to use for his own benefit, so that he can become stronger, harder, more competent, more… _more_ ; so that he may avoid failing, and sequentially, feeling, ever again.

That is what you do to survive the most tragic events in his field, in his life. Tooru knows this, and knows this is the only way to go.

Hajime, unfortunately, does not share the same beliefs.

Unlike Tooru that repels all things destructive, Hajime, like many others, takes it all in. He takes in the patients’ pain and makes it his own. He takes his emotions and feeds it into his heart and Tooru thinks this is how he got those magnificent pectorals: by stuffing emotions inside his chest, the same way his shoulders had broadened by bearing his patients’ burdens, in the hopes that he may help lighten their load.

They advise against it. Even Tooru knows exactly how unhealthy it is—bearing that much responsibility is a doctor’s shortest cut to insanity, hysteria. No one should torment themselves that way.

Hajime brushes them all off, doesn’t acknowledge how self-destructive his values are. It’s beyond Tooru’s understanding how Hajime could be so hypocritical. In high school they had been through this exact argument multiple times. _Don’t overwork yourself. It’s not your fault. Stop taking all the blame._

Except now it’s the other way around, and Tooru finally appreciates how patient Hajime must have been for putting up with his habits for so long, because now that they’ve somehow switched places, Tooru wants nothing more than to smack his best friend’s head with a volleyball.

He knows Hajime is hurting. He sees it in the amount of nicotine he breathes, in the shadows beneath his eyes that are even deeper than Tooru’s own. He sees it in the number of times he sees Hajime’s name on the whiteboard where they tally their extra shifts.

Tooru is an achiever. He had goals: beating Shiratorizawa, competing in the Nationals, claiming the best setter award in the high school league, graduating at the top twenty of his batch, playing in the professional league. There’s a reason why he’s working so hard—there’s always something to accomplish.

He had thought Hajime is the same. He must have some kind of goal in mind, for him to be behaving this way, much like Tooru back then.

It takes him a while to finally understand. He understands when he finally takes the time to look, and to really observe.

He sees the way his skin crinkles around his eyes as he laughs at a patient’s joke. He sees how he consistently waters the plant by the window of a seventy-year old patient, every morning before he starts his shift. He sees how broken he gets whenever he declares the time of death of a patient he had cared for. He sees how he lightly smacks a kid in the head with his chart, angrily yelling at the teenager for spraining his ankle twice in less than a month. Afterwards, he sees how Iwaizumi handles the leg with utmost care, with the expertise of a boy who’s handled a similar situation far too regularly, too familiarly for a beginner. He does it all so wonderfully, so sincerely.

Tooru realizes Hajime doesn’t do it for the achievement. He doesn’t do it to get some kind of award, or to avenge his kicked ego.

He does it for the sake of helping, in the purest, most genuine sense of the word.

Hajime can call him lifesaver all he wants, but Tooru knows the truth. He has no doubt Hajime has done things far more meaningful. More life-altering. Lifesaving.

Now, he’s doing it again, the martyr that he is. Putting everyone else first before himself. Curing at the expense of his own health.

He’s never felt so frustrated. Because who is he, to stop Hajime from offering himself to a cause so noble?

He moves to the bed, careful not to look at his best friend, not to show the distress in his face until he dumps himself on the mattress on his stomach, burying his face on the pillow, smothering himself with whatever remained of his best friend’s scent.

He hears a sigh behind him, a padding of feet until it stops by the bed, before he feels the mattress dip with another heavy weight.

“Look. I’m not going to force you. But this virus… People are dying from it, Tooru. They need our help out there, and, well,” Hajime stops, and Tooru can guess he’s probably scratching the back of his neck, blushing madly because he isn’t usually open this way. “It would be nice, having my best friend get out there with me.”

Tooru squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to disappoint. Not anymore.

He grips the sheets tight.

* * *

_“How do you do it, Iwa-chan? How do you let yourself become so attached without breaking down? How do you let yourself care so much?”_

_“If I tell you, I’m gonna have to kill you.”_

* * *

The news comes in the form of a phone call. He grips the offending gadget tight in his hands. He couldn’t form words, so he doesn’t bother. With a decisive click, he hangs up the phone, lets his hand fall to his side.

_“He’s been sick for a while before this.”_

_“You talked on the phone a lot. Didn’t he tell you?”_

_“I’m very sorry, Oikawa-san.”_

He digs deep into his memories of the past month, painstakingly remembering every conversation from the past weeks, picking up on anything that may have hinted onto this conclusion.

 _“Of course, we get checked-up regularly, Oikawa. I work at a_ hospital _.”_

_“I don’t even feel any of the symptoms. Idiot. You have to stop worrying too much.”_

_“I-We'll only be isolated for a while. We’re just trying to prevent any possibility of it spreading to the rest of the staff.”_

_“Ah, dammit. This sucks.”_

_“I should’ve just stayed home with you.”_

_“You know I love you, right?”_

In hindsight, he should have seen this coming. Maybe he had already known hours ago.

Or maybe weeks ago, to be more accurate. But denial is a powerful thing.

He’s stirred from his thoughts by the sound of his phone colliding against the opposite wall. He realizes he can’t hear his thoughts when he makes a louder noise, so he looks for other things to break. A vase. A mug. Another mug. Flips the coffee table over. Smashes the television over it. Tears don’t come. He’s had years of practice keeping it in.

And then he runs to their, his, car, bringing nothing but a set of keys, a wallet, and his heart, broken beyond repair. He needs to go back. To home—to a time and a place where everything was okay, where the love of his life, his best friend, is alive, together with him.

* * *

“So?” He feels Hajime rub his thigh with a calloused hand, massaging, urging. “Will you do it for me?”

Here it is, the same question asked for the last couple of days, answered with the same vehement 'no' every single time. This is the first time he’s going off-script, the first time he’s not running away.

Tooru will never say it out loud, but he’s just as weak for Hajime as Hajime is for him. If he ever asked him for anything, Tooru would give. Whatever it is. He’d give so much; he’d give him the moon. The stars. The sky. He’d give him all. But Hajime has never demanded anything.

This is the only wish he’s ever made. And he’d be damned if he denied his best friend the only thing he ever asked of him.

He rubs his face on the pillow, wiping off his tears, nuzzling more of Hajime’s scent to relax himself, ridding him of his fears, his grief. Then, he speaks.

“I’ll go.”

There’s a beat of silence as Hajime processes his response. “What?”

“I’ll go.” His voice cracks, but he can’t stop now. He’s made up his mind. “I’ll go. Wherever you want me to go. I’ll get out there. For them. For you.” He pulls himself to his feet, walks back to the window, cementing his decision with every step.

He’s climbing on the window sill when he finally hears Hajime speak.

“Oikawa.”

Tooru wills himself not to look, but he has to take a chance, maybe this time, maybe…

“Thank you.” Hajime breathes ever so lightly, relief audible in his voice. He knows what a happy Hajime sounds like. It sounds like it did back then, when he had been pulled back into a photo booth, a carefree, cheerful burst of joy right by his ear. He does not want to miss what could be the last chance to see it again. So he looks up, finally, to search for a presence, but the voice was gone, and in its place, the gnawing loneliness of reality.

Tooru huffs, smiling despite himself. He already knows he's not there. Not really.

He pushes off the window for the last time, closing Hajime’s room behind him, lifeless, empty. Home to nothing but furniture and memories.

* * *

_“_ I’ll let you in on my secret, Tooru.”

“Iwa-chan?” He asks, confused by the suddenness of the topic. They had been silent for a while before just then.

“You wanted to know how I do it. You want to know why I do my job the way I do.” Tooru knows to recognize a solemn moment when he’s in it, so he waits. Hajime takes a deep breath before speaking again.

“They’re you.”

Tooru waits a beat, waits as his sleep-deprived brain struggles to understand what he was hearing, before giving up. “What?”

A tired laugh, and Hajime speaks again, short sentences spoken far between, like he’s talking to a child. “They’re all you. To me. I put your face over theirs. I imagine they’re all you.”

Tooru’s poor, overworking brain takes in each sentence slowly, with the analyzing capacity of the child that he is, before it finally hits him. “What the hell, Iwa-chan!”

He hears Hajime chuckle weakly again on the other end. “Whenever they wheel in another boy with a sprained joint, I can’t help but think, ‘Goddamit, Shittykawa. Why are you always injuring yourself? So stupid. So clumsy. Such an idiot.’ And when I get an old woman with the virus, I think ‘This isn’t how the Grand King is going down! I won’t allow it!’”

“Iwa-chan, noooo!“

Tooru’s blushing madly now that his mind has finally caught up. He has to stop the other man from talking or else he’s going to explode.

The line rings with sounds of laughter, this time from both of them, one weak, one embarrassed, and Tooru revels in the music of their fleeting joy.

And then, silence.

“I think they’re all you. Tooru who needs my help. Like always.” Tooru ignores his tears as he listens. A deep inhale, and Hajime’s forging ahead again.

“Tooru who deserves all the love in the world, or, at the very least, all the love I can give.” Hajime confesses, his voice weak and hoarse, slightly cracking. Tooru thinks he may be slowly succumbing into slumber. It's already so deep into the night, after all.

Denial is a powerful thing.

His next words are spoken quieter than a whisper, but Tooru hears it clear as day. He ingrains it in his mind, wills to embody it with every fiber of his being. Treasures it, keeps it ringing in his head even through the following day, when the owner of the voice is long gone and he is forced to face the reality of it all. Even through the weeks after, when things finally attain a semblance of normalcy, and he decides to follow the unspoken advice embedded in Hajime’s last words, keeps it close to his heart, draws strength from it.

“I see you in everyone, Tooru. ‘Makes it so much easier to love every single one of them, as much as I love you.”

He embraces his best friend’s memory through it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Visit my [tumblr](https://cathgotyourtongue.tumblr.com/) if you're interested!
> 
> Edit: a few typos I'm sorry!


End file.
